Continuing its tirade against the Centre for giving environment clearance to the Rs 17,000 crore multipurpose Polavaram project in Andhra Pradesh, the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) on Sunday staged a rally at Malkanagiri to highlight the threat of submergence of a large tract of tribal and forest land in south Orissa due to the project.
The rally, organized under the banner of youth BJD, was attended by eight ministers and about a dozen ruling party MPs and MLAs though chief minister Naveen Patnaik stayed away from it.
Malkanagiri being a hotbed of Maoist activity, a tight security cover was thrown around the venue of the rally with deployment of 10 platoons of police forces.
The BJD leaders addressing the “Save Malkanagiri and Scrap Polavaram” rally accused the Central government of showing step-motherly attitude towards Orissa.
“While on one hand it did not permit Vedanta’s bauxite mining project at Niyamagiri hill in Kalahandi district to save the tribal people, on the other hand it intends to rob the tribal people of their land by allowing the Polavaram project which will submerge a large tract of forest land”, the leaders said.
At least 28 tribal villages of Motu tehsil in Malkanagiri district and several acres of forest lands will be inundated by the multi-purpose dam project over river Godavari in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, said state’s revenue minister SN Patra. “Naveen Patnaik government will not permit its counterpart in Andhra Pradesh to implement the project against the interest of the state people”, added state’s finance minister Prafulla Chandra Ghadai.
The rally was also addressed by several other ministers including rural development minister, Bikram Arukha, energy minister, Atanau Sabyasachi Nayak, labour minister, Puspendu Singdeo, women and child development minister, Pramilla Mallick, SC and ST development minister, Bijay Ranjan Singh Bariha, IT minister, Ramesh Majhi and a number of MLAs and party functionaries.
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It is the second anti-Centre rally organised by the youth wing of the party in a fortnight. BJD had held a rally at Lanjigarh, the site of the Vedanta refinery in Kalahandi district, immediately after the denial of permission by the Centre to the company for mining of bauxite in Niyamgiri hills and visit of AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi to the area to reap political mileage out of the development. “The agitation will continue against the Center’s attitude towards Orissa”, said a party’s youth wing leader. “The Center is creating obstacles in the path of development of the state which has attracted over Rs 6 lakh corre of investment,” said the revenue minister.
Besides providing irrigation facilities, the multi-purpose Polavaram project aims to generate 960 mw power. The latest estimated cost of the project is Rs 17,340-crore.